Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Hmmm Netanyahu meets with Shas

Could something be up? Frustrated with the pace of coalition negotiations, Prime Minister Netanyahu met on Tuesday night with Shas leader Eli Yishai.

Coalition talks between Likud Beytenu and Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi
remained at a near-standstill Tuesday, meaning that the
government will most likely be sworn in next week. Amid the growing
hurdles to form the government Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met
with joint chief of Shas MK and Interior Minister Eli Yishai on Tuesday
night.

Likud Beytenu’s hopes
of signing an agreement with Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi by Tuesday, presenting
his choices to President Shimon Peres Wednesday and then having the government
sworn in on Thursday following the legally mandated 24-hour waiting period, were
dashed. Netanyahu’s deadline to form a coalition is
Saturday night.

A new bone of contention arose between the parties – the
chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee – and this time, Bayit Yehudi
joined in the wrangling.

In a clear sign of strife between former
allies, Bayit Yehudi made public its demand for the powerful committee – which
carries the political cache of a ministry – citing the fact that Yesh Atid
leader Yair Lapid had received the Finance portfolio that Bayit Yehudi chairman
Naftali Bennett coveted, and that Bayit Yehudi had gone down from four to three
ministries due to Yesh Atid’s demands for a smaller government.

Sources
in Bennett’s party have expressed frustration over having made concessions to
help Yesh Atid achieve many of its objectives in coalition talks, while the
latter has not done the same for them.

...

On Tuesday night, perhaps in
recognition of the growing cracks between Bayit Yehudi and Yesh Atid the
PM meet with joint chief of Shas MK and Interior Minister Eli Yishai.
The Shas lawmaker on Wednesday morning commented on the coalition
negotiation process, which he has been largely excluded from up to this
point saying, "My heart goes out to the prime minister who is expected
in the coming years to be prisoner to the whims of Yesh Atid and Bayit
Yehudi."

Another hitch in coalition talks is the number
of ministries Hatnua would get. Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni and Likud Beytenu want
to leave it at two, as agreed upon in the parties’ coalition deal. However, Yesh
Atid and Bayit Yehudi’s portfolios go according to a ministerial index of one
per every four MKs, and they are demanding that the six-MK Hatnua follow the
same proportion.

Meanwhile, the clash between Likud Beytenu and Yesh Atid
over the Education portfolio – with the former insisting that current Education
Minister Gideon Sa’ar stay in the post and the latter wanting it to go to its
own MK Shai Piron – continued. Another option would be for Sa’ar to become
interior minister, but Yesh Atid has demanded to hold both disputed
portfolios.

Also Tuesday, a halachic responsum that Piron – a former
rabbi at the Petah Tikva Hesder Yeshiva – issued during the second intifada came
to light, saying that Jewish people should not rent homes to Arabs. Sources in
Yesh Atid accused the Likud of searching for “dirt” on Piron to deter the party
from holding on to the Education portfolio.

There are three possibilities here:

1. Netanyahu is hoping to convince Labor's Shelly Yacimovitch to join the Haredim and give him a coalition. That's kind of hard to believe given no reports of Netanyahu meeting with Yacimovitch.

2. Netanyahu has decided that Yesh Atid is more trouble than they're worth, and has actually started to convince Bayit Yehudi of the same thing. This dovetails with a mass letter of support from National Religious rabbis to Haredi rabbis that was reported in the Haredi media on Tuesday. Possible, but not the most likely possibility.

3. Netanyahu is trying to pressure Yair Lapid to get a deal done already by reminding him that there are other options. This seems most likely.

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-three years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 10 to 31 years and seven grandchildren. Our eldest daughter and eldest son are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com